2009/7/7 jon york <jr_...@hotmail.com>: > Alright, not that I want to start any E-fights, but I do believe these are > serious questions that need to be answered > > in any project, there needs to be a driving reason behind it other then > "because", also, there needs to be a reason for people to try it, and > switch, or else this project will eventually fail.
I concur. I am somewhat dismayed by what I've read so far. This seems to me to be just another gratuitous "let's do a version of Ubuntu with our favourite desktop environment on it" effort to me, frankly. Firstly, there is an existing effort to create a lightweight version of Ubuntu. It's called U-Lite (formerly Ubuntu Lite until Canonical had Words), being developed largely solo by Shae Smittle. http://u-lite.org/ So Lubuntu seems to be rather duplicating this effort. Secondly, If Lubuntu wants to be a lightweight distro for low-end machines, then there is simply no point including large, heavyweight apps such as OpenOffice. There is no reason that a cut-down Linux should not run happily on 15 to 20 year old PC hardware - and back in those days, when production volumes were much lower and PCs were much more expensive, they were built of higher-quality components and are quite likely to still be working fine. 192MB of RAM and a few gig of disk is not a particularly lightweight PC. That spec will run Windows XP if you're patient, and a hundred other Linux distros. It will, for example, run Xubuntu quite well. The big gap in the Linux ecosystem is lower down than that. It is for machines which were meant for Windows 98: 64-128MB RAM and 1GB of disk or less. Yes, distros like Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux will run on this, but they are dramatically constrained and both are designed to run from bootable CDs, not to be installed onto a hard disk. This poses various problems. [1] They are not easy to install. [2] Once installed, they are not easy to keep updated. [3] It's also not trivial to add new applications, remove existing ones and so on. [4] Many very old, very low-spec PCs can't boot from CD anyway. Indeed of my own half a dozen PCs still in regular use, none can boot off a USB stick, and these are all from the 21st century and run modern OSs just fine. There is a real gap in the market for a VERY lightweight Linux desktop aimed at such machines. Bear in mind, if it runs on a 64MB box in 500MB of disk, it will *fly* along on a more modern PC. Aiming at low-end kit does not limit you to low-end kit. LXDE might be just the thing for it, too. But at the moment, it seems to me that the team behind Lubuntu: [a] are rather pointedly snubbing Shae and the U-Lite project [b] lack clear demarcation either from U-Lite or from any other flavour of Ubuntu [c] are including tools that disqualify them from their alleged goal of running on moderately low-end kit which [d] would appear to distinctly overlap with the objectives of Xubuntu, just for starters. My most serious concerns could be expressed thus: - firstly, pick some proper lightweight apps to go with your lightweight desktop. There is no point in just offering the same apps as any other Ubuntu variant. - secondly, stick to one toolkit or set of libraries when doing this, or you will bloat your distro out with a horrendous mix of GNOME libraries and KDE libraries and LXDE libraries and so on. - thirdly, make it a proper, really lightweight distro for really low-end kit. There is an abundance of choice in terms of distros for relatively modern kit, and with nothing to distinguish it, Lubuntu is doomed to obscurity. Set a target - e.g. not more than 250MB of binaries on media, or 500MB installed on disk - something that allows for more functionality than one of the 50MB or 100MB business-card-CD or mini-3"-CD distros - and deliver a proper, installable, updateable, full distro with the power of APT-GET, rather than just another LiveCD. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop Post to : lubuntu-desktop@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~lubuntu-desktop More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp